All The King's Horses And All The King's Men
by Adele Elisabeth
Summary: ...couldn't put their world together again. (femme-slash, character death)


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[disclaimer: No, really officer, I have a perfectly good explanation for why the better half of JK Rowling's characters are all in the boot of my car, honest!**]**

Author's Note: Anya Corso, full name Lady Anya Lolita Evelyn Corso (Tavington), is an original character of mine from a Hermione/Anya role-play with a friend of mine, who has popped up in some fanfiction that I've as yet only posted in my livejournal. She's not normally like this. (_Normally_, she's a chain-smoking, alcoholic sixteen year old murderess, whereas this fic decided to be meaningful and angsty) 

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All The King's Horses And All The King's Men

By Adele Elisabeth

…could not put their world together again…

It was not a cold and stormy night. 

Anya felt obscurely betrayed by this fact. 

Then again, she wasn't even entirely sure that it _was_, in fact, night-time. Day and night had blurred into one -- after all, the sun no longer shone either way, but the fires were light enough. She relished their warmth (felt even there), and pretended she did not hear the screams.

Theirs was once black and white world, Hermione had told her. Anya didn't think it had ever been as simple as all that, but they both agreed it had faded into bloodstained grey, with casual cruelty and redemption that could be purchased. 

She thought of the way everyone had been so excited to finally leave school -- adults, adults in their own right at long last!

She thought of the screams of laughter and then the screams of…something else. Something she did not care to recall, something that woke her on the nights when they could not afford Dreamless Sleep potion. 

They didn't talk about that day any more, the day that marked the, as Potter put it so melodramatically, beginning of the end. 

Now that he was dead (or at least as good as), Anya felt comfortable in admitting that for all the drama, he had been right. She knew there were still people that believed Harry Potter would awake and save them -- Anya didn't think there was anything left of the Harry Potter that those imbeciles had worshipped _to_ wake up. He was no sleeping warrior who would arise in their hour of need -- he was just a man, just a _boy_, and he hadn't been enough. None of them had been enough. And now there weren't enough of any of them. 

Ron Weasley was simply dead. A training accident, apparently. Anya didn't believe that for a second, and she said as much to Hermione, but the ensuing argument had seen to it that Anya learned when it was wise to simply hold her tongue. 

The war had not, officially, ended. It was just that it wasn't so much of a war anymore as it was a battlefield they called 'home'. Children had grown up never knowing what it felt like just to take a walk without fear. (Come to that, Anya had never known what that felt like, but that was for vastly different reasons and completely ruined her poignant moment, so she ignored it) 

The Ministry no longer existed. The Death Eaters barely held together. People just…fought. They fought because they had always fought and there was nothing else left for them. Muggles, wizards, squibs, half-bloods, "muggle-borns", purebloods…hybrids. All the lines had blurred. Peace was an out-dated, half-remembered concept. The reality of living one's life in constant, low-grade terror that often escalated…

That was the way it was, now. 

"Was it right, Anya?" 

She tore herself away from her depressing train of thought and met Hermione's sightless gaze -- a curse never meant for her, none of it meant for her… "Was what right, Granger?" Nearly eleven years, and yet still she had trouble using Hermione's first name. 

"All…this." Hermione tried to wave an arm around; Anya caught it before she did herself an injury. "Was it a mistake?" 

"For it to have been a mistake," she said slowly, "It would have had to have been a choice. You did what you had to do -- you did what you shouldn't have had to do. Nobody can ask any more of you." _Certainly not now they can't…_Anya thought bitterly, holding Hermione's skeletal hand and knowing in her soul that this was the last time she would have to answer that question. 

So the world burned around them as the light of the last hope, the last hero of the wizarding world, quietly and with barely a shudder, went out. 

All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put their world together again. 


End file.
